Friday, January 02, 2009

Predictions For 2009 (Big Green Stylee)

After the Mystic Meg like qualities of our predictions last year (all pure guesswork and based on nothing more than flights of fancy), cross my palm with silver my pretty, and we'll tell you the future again.

OK we'll tell you anyway...

JanuaryAmazon opens it's first High Street bookshop. It expects to make a $10 million loss in the first year, and assures us all that things will get 10 times worse. The banks throw their money at it.FebruaryThe 'Credit Crunch Diet book', an 'diet book parody in these lean times' is published by some crappy no mates publisher, and we all laugh. Ho Ho Ho. 3 Months later the publisher goes tits up.MarchThe Big Green Bookshop celebrates it's first birthday to fanfares, trumpets and a tickertape parade. Unfortunately the fanfares, trumpets and parade are for the new Tesco opening down the road.AprilThe Tuesday Project is boldly launched. It claims to be the only print publisher wholly concerned with finding books and then turning them into websites. HarperCollins licks its' lips.MayBloomsbury introduce us to exciting new author A K Howling (pronounced hole-ing), and claim he/she's the new Jill Murphy (author of the Worst Witch series first published in 1974).Doubleday counter with their new 'find', Dan Frown.JuneWaterstone's summer promo is an "I tell you what. If you buy this book and you don't like it and you let us know, bring it back and as long as it's in good condition we'll give you some money or something like money (so probably a Waterstones voucher)back" promotion to the unsuspecting public. Unfortunately, the orange sticker with the offer on is twice the size of the book.JulyNintendo introduces the Nintendo Riiiiiid to the book hating public, a machine in which you score points by moving your head as fast as you can from side to side in front of an imaginary book. Tesco takes 100,000.AugustRichard and Judy are dropped and replaced by The Chuckle Brothers. Their Book Club outstrips the ageing journo's 3 to 1. Barry Chuckle announces 'Oh dear, oh dear'SeptemberThe Booker shortlist is announced. Kerry Katona, Geri Halliwell, Katie Price (the bookies favourite), Lee Ryan off of Blue, Keith Chegwin and Salman Rushdie are all on the list.OctoberBono off of U2 publishes a E-book only book, entitled 'U2; we're so amazing, so we are'. It gets to number one in the charts after Bono, his Mum and (reluctantly) The Edge buy 25,000 downloads each.NovemberTip top Chrimbo books this year include, 'Brooklyn Beckham, my life so far', Jennifer Saunders' autobiography 'Leave Me Alone You Skinny Stalker', and my mate Jeremy Clarkson's latest bestselling... 'I'll Argue with Anyone if They Pay me Enough..oh and i'll probably argue some more towards the end of next year too'.DecemberLots of books get sold at really cheap prices and we all sigh and moan and worry and fret and frown and stress and cry and point and accuse and groan and sulk and then when it's all over, we have a lovely lovely Christmas.

1 comment:

I think you'd better copyright the Nintendo Riiiiiid quickly, that's genius. I think though it should come with two plastic 'wings' that you peel back to turn the page, thus ensuring the 'joy of reading is maintained, and allowing e-book publishers to claim their books are still 'pageturners'.